Loki FAQ

The title of this page is a lie. I have received no questions frequently enough to warrant an FAQ, and I’m not going to bother writing this in a Q&A style, either, but I hate coming up with titles for pages, and this one will serve the purpose.

But this is about Loki.

Or rather, about relationships with Loki, since in my short time online in the Norse/heathen/Loki-friendly parts of the Internet, I keep seeing people complain about the same misperceptions. (If you want other kinds of resources about Loki, check out the Resources page.)

First, you do not have to have any kind of sexual or romantic interactions with Loki, ever, to be a devotee of His.

People who DO have that kind of relationship are actually a minority, it’s just that more people in consort or spousal roles blog about it than do people who see Loki as a father-figure, mentor, older brother, friend, uncle, etc. It doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong, it doesn’t mean your relationship is “less important” or less meaningful than a consort’s, because it is not, and it certainly does NOT mean He doesn’t care about you if He hasn’t made a pass at you or proposed. (And just because you have sex with a deity doesn’t mean you have to marry Them, either.)

Secondly, if you DO have that kind of relationship with Him, but you do not fit the same mold that the most visible godspouses seem to (women, relating to Loki-as-male, though I wouldn’t assume that everyone has publicly gone into detail about all the forms Loki has appeared in to them), that doesn’t mean you are doing it wrong, or misunderstanding the nature of your relationship. I know of trans*, genderqueer, genderfluid, and androgynous people who have consort-type relationships with Loki. And I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if there are heterosexual cisgendered men out there who see Loki as Wife.

Similarly, I’ve known of people of a wide range of sexual orientations who have had some kind of sexual interaction or on-going consort/spouse kind of relationship with Loki, including people who identify as asexual. I’ve also heard of people having sexual interactions with Him along the lines of “I’m really only attracted to this gender, but Loki showed up in this other gender, and I enjoyed what happened, and now I am confused. Anyone else . . . ?”

Loki is a shapeshifter and known in the lore for changing sex as well as species. I know of people who more often interact with Loki in female form than male. Or who see Him as a burly man rather than more common slim, kind of androgynous male form that most artists depict. Black-haired or blonde, never a redhead. Or who have experience with Loki as neither male nor female but both at once. Or who have experience with Loki in several different forms. Sometimes the form He/She picks isn’t going to appear human. And anyway, gender is a human construct, not so much something that deities necessarily need for Themselves.

Along these lines, I’ve heard people mention the existence of male spouses of Odin; I know of male consorts to female deities and men who’ve had one-time experiences with other goddesses, and consorts and spouses to deities who aren’t as commonly known to do this sort of thing as Loki and Odin are. Spirit relationships are not limited to the Norse pantheon, or to deities – I know people who have relationships and marriages with elves, fae, and other kinds of spirits, too . . . there’s a lot of variety out there is what I’m saying. There are a number of pagan/polytheist-oriented groups on FetLife, including one for people having relationships with the Unseen. That might not be the worst place in the world to ask “has anyone else had this Really Weird Sex/Relationship Thing going on with a deity?” Things are weird out there.

Credit where credit is due: while I was still dithering about making a Real Blog, it occurred to me, after reading this post, that making a permanent page like this might be a useful thing. While I have seen this anti-bullshit post several times – it gets reblogged on Tumblr periodically – and this excellent rant, which also gets into “you do not have to oath to Loki to worship Him,” I can’t recall having seen a static page with the same sort of information.